surfnslide A blog about my efforts to pretend I'm still 21 through my outdoor activities, walks, trips and so on.

With a mild hangover (spot the pun from the previous post) we spent the usual eternity agreeing where to go for a walk. Not fancying using the car or the crowds no doubt attracted to the honeypots higher up the valley, we hit the heights of Buckbarrow and Seatallan. Hills of contrast, one rocky, one grassy. A nice combination that see’s very few footprints if my experience is anything to go by

Over the fields and a steep climb alongside the tautological Gill Beck.

Buckbarrow is splendid summit if you can call it that. In reality, just the rocky end of the grassier Seatallan but littered with small rocky outcrops. I’ve climbed it several times in the past few years and its become one of my favourite places.

DB Senior who apparently wasn’t all that keen on a walk had a whale of time scrambling up some pretty tough little routes. Always adds to the pleasure for me to see one of the younger members of the gang enjoying the mountains same way I used to. I feel like I’m passing on the baton as I get older (more of this in a couple of posts time!)

It was an overcast day but a few glints of sunlight kept us bright and the clouds were off the summits making for pretty fine views

We stopped for a very long lunch after a long stretch where we walked for almost one hour! We compared stoves (my Jetboil won of course), talked nonsense with a little politics thrown in and laughed at great deal

Time to move on as OGS was getting restless. I compared middle aged ailments and injuries as we strolled to the broad grassy summit of Seatallan. The views from here are unusual in that you see hills and valleys you wouldn’t normally see or know of. Here we have Haycock and Caw Fell above the wonderfully name River Bleng. Looked a fine spot for quiet wild camp some time

We could see the Isle of Man although its summits seemed to be in cloud

The main Scafell Pike range looked impressively dark and forbidding

The descent towards Middle Fell was impressively steep and I declined the offer of an ascent of Middle Fell in return for a very wet, soggy and leg grazing traverse around Greendale Tarn.

The rest of the day was whiled away with the steep descent along Greendale Gill and the return across the fields to the campsite for a chilly BBQ in the ever increasing wind

Quite a long walk in the end at 8 miles and a very one enjoyable one as well. Nothing to challenge the brain so the focus is just on enjoying being out with good company both young, old and very old (sorry OGS!)

12 responses to “The quieter side of Wasdale”

I think Middle Fell is one of my favourites so far. The view to the Scafells from that summit was a proper open mouthed one, I ascended Seatallan up your down route!!! I also went off to find Joss Naylors cairn whilst around Buckbarrow. That little Greendale Round is a cracker. Good memories brought back by this post

8 miles? I only had it down as seven! (Measuring using fingers held at 1 km spacing – very accurate)
A very fine walk over very fine hills. Maybe we should take the dangerous brothers up one of the Buckbarrow scrambles next year – while we still can?

There you go then, I’ve gained you a mile. I’ve started using the O/S maps service and I’m pretty impressed. It’s £23 a year for access to all 1:50k and 1:25k maps on PC and mobiles and you can download maps to use offline and draw routes like you used to with Bing but it works better. I reckon that’s a bargain
We need to take the DBs up Tryfan and the Glyders, they’d love it. I reckon I might have 2 maybe 3 left in me at most 😥

Absolutely, the masses all head for the small number of well known summits by the obvious routes, a bit thought and you can find quiet summits and stunning tarns and valleys that most people won’t have heard of. These far SW summits give some excellent walking and scrambling

So whats my Blog about?

I spend alot of my time surfing the web looking for ideas on places to go, walking routes, travel ideas and tips to plan the perfect holiday or day out. (I'm a project manager I like to plan). I thought it was time to share my own experiences and contribute to the vast amounts in information that's already out there.

I'll also add in some gear and tech reviews and when something irks me I may even use this forum to have a rant - I do that pretty well I'm told.There are a few pages at the top that give a bit of background to what I like to get up to and what you can expect to see in my posts. I'm not exactly a creative writer but I hope some people will find my stuff useful or inpsiring or at least enjoy some of my photos.

Enjoy!

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